Baseline reinforcement rate and resurgence of destructive behavior

Concepts from behavioral momentum theory, along with some empirical findings, suggest that the rate of baseline reinforcement may contribute to the relapse of severe destructive behavior. With seven children who engaged in destructive behavior, we tested this hypothesis in the context of functional communication training by comparing the effects of different baseline reinforcement rates on resurgence during a treatment challenge (i.e., extinction). We observed convincing resurgence of destructive behavior in four of seven participants, and we observed more resurgence in the condition associated with high‐rate baseline reinforcement (i.e., variable‐interval 2 s in Experiment 1 or fixed‐ratio 1 in Experiment 2) compared to a low‐rate baseline reinforcement condition. We discuss the implications of these results relative to schedules of reinforcement in the treatment of destructive behavior and strategies to mitigate resurgence in clinical settings.     

Assessing the generality and durability of interview‐informed functional analyses and treatment

Due to the limited research demonstrating socially valid outcomes of function‐based treatments in ecologically relevant environments (Santiago, Hanley, Moore, & Jin, 2016), we replicated and extended the effects of the interview‐informed functional analysis and skill‐based treatment procedure described by Hanley, Jin, Vanselow, and Hanratty (2014) with two children diagnosed with autism in a home setting. The assessment and treatment was implemented by a home‐based service provider and treatment was extended to the participants’ parents. Following the interview‐informed functional analyses, we taught the participants functional communication responses and to engage in less‐preferred activities when functional communication outcomes were delayed. We observed large reductions in problem behavior following the introduction of the function‐based treatment. The effects extended to novel settings, stimuli, and caregivers and the results maintained at 6‐week follow‐ups.     

Decreasing influence of arbitrarily applicable verbal relations of recreational gamblers: A randomized controlled trial

Twenty‐one recreational gamblers were randomly assigned to two groups; one group was exposed to a conditional discrimination relational training task to bias choice allocation to a black machine presented concurrently with a red machine, and the other group underwent the same relational training task immediately followed by a defusion procedure, designed to expand upon the relations developed in the initial relational task. Both groups completed a simulated slot‐machine task before and after the relational training task, with or without the defusion procedure. Results showed that 9 of 11 participants in the relational training only group showed an increased bias toward the black machine, compared to only 4 of 10 in the relational training plus defusion group; this latter group also showed greater matched responding. Results suggest that expanding verbal–relational networks may reduce the influence of any single verbal relation on gambling choice behavior.     

Correction to: Rational social and political polarization

Philosophical Studies - In the original publication of the article, the Acknowledgement section was inadvertently not included. The Acknowledgement is given in this Correction.     

Why does impression management positively influence interview ratings? The mediating role of competence and warmth

Though interviews assess job applicants' skills and abilities, they can be influenced by extraneous factors, including impression management (IM) tactics. Interviewees’ self‐promotion and ingratiation IM tactics predict higher interview ratings; however, researchers have yet to determine why these tactics work. We assessed whether two fundamental dimensions of social perception, competence and warmth, mediate the relationship between IM tactics and interview ratings. We hypothesized that interviewee competence mediates the relationship between self‐promotion and interview ratings, and interviewee warmth mediates the relationship between ingratiation and interview ratings. Using real employment interviews, we found that competence mediates the relationship between self‐promotion and interview ratings, but warmth did not mediate the relationship between ingratiation and interview ratings in the way we expected.     

Does Cooperation in the Laboratory Reflect the Operation of a Broad Trait?

The Dictator Game, a face valid measure of altruism, and the Trust Game, a face valid measure of trust and trustworthiness, are among the most widely used behavioural measures in human cooperation research. Researchers have observed considerable covariation among these and other economic games, leading them to assert that there exists a general human propensity to cooperate that varies in strength across individuals and manifests itself across a variety of social settings. To formalize this hypothesis, we created an S‐1 bifactor model using 276 participants' Dictator Game and Trust Game decisions. The general factor had significant, moderate associations with self‐reported and peer‐reported altruism, trust, and trustworthiness. Thus, the positive covariation among economic games is not reducible to the games' shared situational features. Two hundred participants returned for a second session. The general factor based on Dictator Game and Trust Game decisions from this session did not significantly predict self‐reported and peer‐reported cooperation, suggesting that experience with economic games causes them to measure different traits from those that are reflected in self‐assessments and peer‐assessments of cooperativeness. © 2018 European Association of Personality Psychology     

The WISC-V in children and adolescents with epilepsy

Despite its popularity in the neuropsychological evaluation of children, the utility of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children – Fifth Edition (WISC-V) has not yet been investigated in children with epilepsy. Eighty clinically referred children and adolescents with epilepsy were administered the WISC-V as part of a comprehensive assessment and scores were compared to matched controls from the WISC-V standardization sample. T tests compared WISC-V indices and subtests between patients and controls and Chi-square analyses compared the rates of low scores. Correlational analyses assessed the relationships between epilepsy severity variables (e.g., age of onset, duration of epilepsy, number of antiepileptic drugs, seizure frequency). All WISC-V composites and subtests were significantly lower in patients versus controls and the rate of low scores was higher in patients than controls for all composites and subtests with the exception of Figure Weights. The Working Memory Index and Processing Speed Index were most sensitive to impairment, while the Verbal Comprehension Index and Fluid Reasoning Index were least sensitive. Of the epilepsy severity variables, age of seizure onset and number of antiepileptic drugs were strong predictors of deficits, whereas seizure frequency was the weakest predictor. Importantly, no significant differences were seen in children with right hemisphere epilepsy versus left on the five WISC-V composites, though a trend was seen towards a lower Visual-Spatial Index in those with right-sided focal seizures.     

Do emotions play an essential role in moral judgments?

The past few decades of moral psychology research have yielded empirical anomalies for rationalist theories of moral judgments. An increasing number of psychologists and philosophers argue that these anomalies are explained well by sentimentalism, the thesis that the presence of an emotion is necessary for the formation of a sincere moral judgment. The present review reveals that while emotions and moral judgments indeed often co-occur, there is scant evidence that emotions directly cause or constitute moral judgments. Research on disgust, anger, sympathy, and guilt indicates that people only reliably experience emotions when judging conduct that is relevant to the welfare of the self and valued others. Moreover, many recent studies have either failed to replicate or exposed crucial confounds in the most cited evidence in support of sentimentalism. Moral psychologists should jettison sentimentalism, and focus instead on how considerations of harm and welfare—the core concepts of rationalist theories— interact with empirical beliefs to shape moral judgments.     

Clarity and creativity as womanist ethics for teaching and evaluating theological writing

This article uses womanist ethics and theories of writing instruction to illuminate the experiences of black women seminarians with theological writing at a predominantly white institution. The three cases presented here highlight two ethics for teaching and evaluating theological writing: clarity and creativity. Already triply marginalized by race, sex, and class, black women are often greeted with unwritten norms around academic theological writing that threaten their self‐concept and their development as producers of theological knowledge. This work centers reflections of student‐learning on the voices of black women who found their own ways of negotiating these demands. Their responses to the problems of writing for and in white, male‐dominated theological discourses provide moral strategies that all writers can employ and that all theology professors can make a regular part of their ethical pedagogical practice.